Danvers,
MA - It was the lifelong dream of Danvers, Mass. native Erin McLean to appear on
the long-running television game show Jeopardy.
And when her dream became reality as an undergraduate student at
Boston University, McLean brought home the top prize in the show's
2010 Jeopardy College Championship: $100,000.00.

McLean
has since returned to the show to appear in the 2012 Tournament of
Champions, where she was a semi-finalist against other contests much
older and more experienced than she. But she now has an opportunity
to compete on Jeopardy
for a third time, this time for a grand prize of $1 million in the
Battle of the Decades Tournament in celebration of host Alex Trebek's 30-year
anniversary with the show.

"I
want the opportunity to compete in this Decades Tournament because I
have something to prove," says a determined McLean, 21, who is
currently a
PhD candidate at the University of Rhode Island College of the
Environment and Life Sciences in Kingston. "The college champs may get an automatic bid into the
Tournament of Champions, but fans and contestants normally count them
out. They're too young. They haven't learned enough. They
don't have as much life experience. Their questions were too
easy. I'm here to defy all those objections."

To
appear in the Battle of the Decades Tournament, McLean has to enlist the support of
her fans. Fifteen people from each of the past three decades will
face off for $1 million. Fourteen of the contestants from each decade
have already secured their berth in the tournament, chosen by the
show's producers who also selected five people from each decade to
vie for the final entry slot through a unique social media contest. McLean
is one of those wildcard candidates selected from the 2000s.

"I
loved everything about my Jeopardy
experiences: the competition, the people, and the knowledge,"
explains McLean, who was the first Boston University student to ever
win the show's College Championship. "Winning the College
Championship was great, but I wanted more. Being on the Tournament of
Champions quenched that thirst, but only for a little while."

Fans
can lend their support to McLean's bid by casting their vote on the
web at www.jeopardy.com/minisites/battleofthedecades00s,
on Jeopardy's
Facebook page, or by tweeting "Erin #JeopardyVote." Votes
may be cast once per day on each of the three sites for each day,
commencing at 10 a.m. EDT on Monday, Oct. 14, 2013 and concluding at
9:59 a.m. EDT on Monday, Oct. 21.

"I
accepted that I'd probably go through the rest of my life
wanting to go back," McLean admits, "but this Decades
Tournament gives me the opportunity to do it all again and to do it
right. I may be an underdog because I'm just a college champ,
but I can win this."